Don’t look now, but… the formation you are in may still be forming new bits even as you walk around it, as a team from the Dutch Centre for Crop Circle Studies have discovered…

On August 7th, a team from the Dutch Centre for Crop Circle Studies, including author Robert Boerman and Dr Eltjo Haselhoff, found themselves part of an intriguing mystery while investigating a ‘scorpion’-shaped formation at Stadskanaal, The Netherlands.

As they strolled around the formation taking samples for analysis, it was suddenly noticed that an extra small circle with a woven central tuft had appeared on the ‘tail’ of the formation since they had entered the field. No-one saw it happen – suddenly there it was. Later examination of photos proved that it was not there when they first entered. Two members of the team began to feel ill effects as they approached it, as their official report records:

“The air above it was warm. When two other researchers arrived, Robert felt a pain in his legs, and decided to leave the formation immediately. Eltjo felt a pain in the ligaments of his left hand, which he had put inside the fresh crop circle, and followed Robert shortly afterwards. When he joined Robert, who was waiting at the edge of the field, he noticed that the battery of his digital photo camera was completely empty, even though just a minute earlier the camera had still indicated 35 minutes of available operation time. A similar thing happened to a news reporter, who arrived less than an hour afterwards in order to take photographs of the new crop circle.”

The team decided to leave in case the newly-formed circle had dangerous properties. The digital camera was later found to have had its data corrupted.

There have been accounts before of formations allegedly growing while people explore them, but this is the firmest record yet of such an event.